Makira Moorhen

Pareudiastes silvestris

Overview
Conservation Attention
Threats

About

This species was only ever known from the island of Makira in the Solomon Islands.

Unfortunately, the Makira Moorhen may already be extinct having not been seen since 1953. Recent surveys within the centre of the island, where the type specimen (the original individual from which this species was described) was discovered and the last sighting was recorded, have yielded no evidence of the bird’s presence. However, unconfirmed sightings from local villagers keep hope alive that a tiny population still survives. Very little is known about the species, for example they have an unusual blue frontal shield covering the top of its bill and forehead, though the purpose of this shield remains unknown. However, its reduced tail and wings suggest that it is also flightless, like other species of Gallinula. It is thought that introduced mammals may have predated upon the ground-dwelling bird. Introduced fire ants have been suggested as a causal factor in the demise of the species. Habitat loss and logging almost certainly will have been detrimental to the species.

Order: Gruiformes
Family: Rallidae
Population: Unknown
Trend: unknown
Size: 27cm

EDGE Score

EDGE Score: 5.08 (?)

ED Score: 9.05 (?)

GE / IUCN Red List (?)

Distribution

Endemic to the island of Makira, or San Cristobal, in the Solomon Islands.

Habitat and Ecology

They have been recorded at 600m above sea level from rainforest on steep, rocky hills with many small rivers. Very little is known about its behaviour and ecology.

Find out more

Conservation Actions

For each key category of conservation action, we calculated a conservation attention score based on expert information. In this graph, a higher score means the action is being carried out more intensively over more of the species range. The colour shows how important each action is considered to be for the conservation of this species.

Engaging stakeholders	11
Addressing threats	22
Status of knowledge	19
Management plan	7
Capacity building	11
Behaviour change	4
Awareness raising	37
Funding	19
Legislation	11
	0 20 40 60 80 100
	Score: 100 means the activity occurs at high level across more than 75% of the species range
	Priority: High Medium Low Very Low

Overall Conservation Attention

We combined all of the expert information on conservation actions to calculate an overall conservation attention score for this species. Please help us to reach our goal of establishing dedicated conservation attention at “High” levels for all EDGE species.

Very Low Low Medium High

14%

More information

Recent studies have grouped all possible conservation activities for any species into nine key categories (Washington et. al 2015). For each action, we asked experts for each species to assess the extent to which that action is being carried out and how much of the species’ range that action occurs in. For each action we used these two pieces of information to calculate the conservation attention score per action. A score of 100 means that the action is being carried out to a high level across at least 75% of the species range. We then combined the scores for all actions into an overall conservation attention score for the species. The experts also judged how important each category was to the conservation of that particular species.

This wordcloud illustrates the threats facing this species. The size of each word indicates the extent of a species range that is affected by that threat (larger size means a greater area is affected). The colour of the word indicates how much that threat impacts the species (darker shades of red mean the threat is more severe).